


moelle douce

by CampionSayn



Series: Goretober 2020 [3]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Campania Arc, Flash Fic, Gen, Not Beta Read, Our!Ciel Phantomhive goes by Young Phantomhive, Real!Ciel goes by name, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Time Travel Fix-It, Total Power Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26852326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: Sweet foods that once gave him cause to live now turned to ashes in his mouth.
Relationships: Doll & Ciel Phantomhive, Edward Midford & Ciel Phantomhive
Series: Goretober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949095
Kudos: 16





	moelle douce

Edward couldn't hold his laughter in. Long and hysterical, but necessary in the moment as he spotted his youngest cousin adrift in a splintered, but still aloft, lifeboat. Small, bloodied, but alive.  
  
_"Talk to me like I'm a stranger; I prefer that."_  
  
Doll was along with him, by some miracle of the stars aligning just right, because her troupe--Young Phantomhive's servants at arms--almost followed him down exactly. Into hysterics, into unfathomable joy, into full wonderment of they themselves and Edward being on deck to fetch their precious ones out of the freezing Atlantic water and onto the deck of the boat that was deemed " _safe_."  
  
He didn't bother to call on his uncle Vincent, his cousin Ciel, his aunt, his mother, his sister. Edward did send a message to his father down below deck with Snake, but only as an afterthought to knowing that Young would probably fight about getting treated; getting someone to look at the teeth marks the undead had left along his hands and arms--some bones showing wet and sun kissed through torn flesh.  
  
Of course he was right about that, how could he not be, his cousin had despised people touching him since he had appeared at the Scotland Yard station house a month after he'd disappeared with half the Phantomhive home burnt to the ground and half the servants killed and his own family strangely awakening in the garden out of sight.  
  
_(He'd nearly taken the hand off of the first officer that tried to have a look at the eye bound in torn cloth and knotted poorly in the back; a little silver knife in hand, doubtless to protect the group of children in the back of the carriage he'd commandeered for the trip to London.)_  
  
Edward was astounded in his silence at Doll being taken up easily by Joker and Beast, Jumbo pulling up the lifeboat with the sea soaked ropes like pulling on shoelaces, his cousin sedate and observant as a black dog at the royal palace, still holding onto the carnage ridden oar he'd used as a makeshift weapon. But the moment Dagger tried to lend him a hand stepping out onto deck, it was like seeing a wolf; eye alert, skin tight, teeth showing in a sickly smile, "I'll be fine, please don't touch me."  
  
If Edward looked hard enough, he might have seen a trace of red light circling that eye staring through everyone before him.  
  
  
But that wasn't the point of the moment. It was not Edward's duty to observe even more of what had to be supernatural events that always followed the family of the Queen's watchdog, as much as he would have loved to be kept in the know. It was Edward's duty to merely nudge Dagger out of the way and pick up his cousin, stiff as a board and probably holding himself back from striking out at him.  
  
He weighed so little, his blood was soaking into his clothes and Edward allowed himself a moment to recall where the Captain of the ship had shown his father and himself the galley, the medical wing, the quiet corners of the ship where they wouldn't be bothered by the other Phantomhive's until his cousin was calmer.  
  
  
He could bully him into being bandaged and drinking disgusting medicine. He could have him change into a simple overlarge white shirt that was as good as a dressing gown for a person his meager size.   
  
Edward could get him to rest down in a bed much like the one his cousin kept in his own room in the servant's quarters of the Phantomhive estate, far away from the too wide windows, close to humans he trusted, room small enough that his own footsteps didn't echo. Access to multiple exits at a moment's notice.  
  
Getting him to eat something, now, that was the hard part.  
  
  
Edward considered over what the captain had in his ice box, his pantry, under the floorboards in sealed containers. Once upon a time, anything sweet could be set down before Young Phantomhive and he would eat it--French chocolates, sticks covered in bright pastel sugar, cake with frosting that made Edward's teeth hurt just imagining them.  
  
But he'd seen his cousin become physically ill at the mere idea of such things after... _after_. No cakes, no glazed breads, not berry dishes, no puddings. Fine meals of poultry, beef, pork, sauces of decadence covering every surface and spices baked to perfection--he could barely sit down to eat with his family without flinching and curling his lip in revulsion.  
  
Blinking at the memory of dishes he'd seen the younger sneak down to the servants in exchange for their much simpler meals--at home or at parties where they would await in the carriage house for their Master's return with the rest of the Phantomhive's--Edward found two hardboiled eggs, some butter lettuce leaves, and a fish that had been gutted for the eggs inside. The ribs of the fish opened its flesh like the opening for a hand in a puppet.  
  
  
It was plain, and Edward could barely cook despite his time at Weston as a fag for Green House, but he had to replenish his cousin's depleted energy.  
  
He would do his duty. His cousin had saved Lizzie from being torn apart by those Bizarre Dolls, had called for the rest of the ship to head for the lifeboats, had thrown his twin through the air in a preserver when the brat was being too bull headed to see that his little brother knew what he was doing.  
  
Young Phantomhive was the literal diamond in the rough that nobody thought much about, or cared to examine more closely unless they wanted something, and it irritated Edward Midford to no ends.  
  
He would see his cousin taken care of. The servants he'd amassed going behind Vincent's back, edging along Ciel's cases, with Tanaka's barely knowing or understanding could only do so much. So it was up to Edward.  
  
And by hell, he would see it done.


End file.
